Ebgil

So I decided this last weekend to attack the trails and a little bit of mud in North Carolina with a buddy of mine and I found out that Ford now has the Alternator On the bottom of the engine. Why? beats the hell outta me. Seems like a horrid place to put it. I caked the living hell outta my truck with mud and had a red battery light pop up shortly after my adventure. Not knowing the alternator was on the bottom, thinking it was on top like my Dads 5.4L(way wrong), how I didn't notice that a while ago makes me feel like an idiot. So much mud and water got into that alternator that is ruined the voltage regulator. The Steering went bad cause there is a steering assist that utilizes the battery as well. When I took it to ford I told them what happened and at first they said it wasn't covered in my warranty but I only have 15K Miles on it. After talking to the head tech and expressing that a truck should be able to handle this, ford fixed it and labeled it as a ford defect. I asked if ford over all was having these issues and they mentioned that farmers and trailblazers had come in with a few complaints but none that use there truck on the roads. I also asked if there was a way to avoid this happening again and he kinda laughed and said Skid plate...but that doesn't help for the next mud adventure does it? Does anyone have issues with this right now and possibly have a solution for this other than avoid the mud? Here's how it looked !

Crysis

Dammit boy, I got under my truck when they installed my muffler and got to see the alternator on the bottom of the engine, I agree 100%, that is the weirdest place to put it. Just normal driving around town, when it rains heavy, you have intersections that get flooded and what not and that could be a problem just by daily driving.

RLXXI

Oh SNAP!!! I'm gonna hafta look at mine because if I have to worry about electrical shorting because I may go thru some bogs to get to a trail or something, I won't be a happy camper (literally) Hell it don't even hafta be offroad the way a hurricane floods the area from time to time, was one of the reasons I got the thing, to stay high and dry.

Alt on the bottom? What moron thought that placement up?

RLXXI

Placement on my 2013 5.0 is just above the rack-n-pinion but still way down in the engine compartment. That has got to be the stupidest place to put the only electrical power supply on a truck, good grief!!

Ebgil

Ya, The tech called me when I had already explained the problem and said " Theys Muud in the alternator, Theys muud everywhere!!"